


Revenge of the Dead

by Calleva



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 11:21:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21196832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calleva/pseuds/Calleva
Summary: A spooky story for Hallowe'en, written for 'The Musketeers, We are the Garrison' Facebook group.Milady takes up a challenge in one of Paris' largest graveyards, fearing the living more than the dead, which is her first mistake.....





	Revenge of the Dead

The room was completely white, more an entity than a place, where corners and angles disappeared into each other. There were several people inside, and it was difficult to know if they were standing or sitting. Raul was in charge, a tall portly fellow, elaborately dressed. "So we are all agreed, then?"  
"How do we know she will come?" Remi asked.  
"She's clever, she'll never do it." Added Thomas.  
"She'll be there, I wasn't an ambassador for nothing."

* * * * *

"They do say that if you go to the Cimetière des Innocents on All Hallows' Eve, you will see your own fate." Ninon gave a half-smile and a shrug to show she didn't believe a word of it.  
"That might be fun to do if one is bored," Milady looked up from the book she was pretending to read.  
"Perhaps we should perform an experiment," Suggested Fleur Baudin shyly, "Send one of us out to prove whether it's true or not."  
"I can assure you that such ideas are medieval fantasies with no basis in fact. But it might be a good idea to prove it to the credulous. Who would volunteer?"  
There was a brief pause in the conversation. Everyone looked to the one beside them.  
"Very well, I will go," Milady gave her enigmatic smile. It would give her an excuse to get away from these intense women and find respite among the silent tombs. Who knows what sweet young man might be lurking there that she could give solace to? 

Going out on the last night of October was a fool's game Milady thought as she pulled her cloak tighter round her. She wasn't exactly cold but there was a chill in the air which nipped her cheeks and nose. She had no time for superstition, usually it was she who dished out fate. She remembered the night in the inn at Meung when she killed the fat Spaniard and pinned it on the sweet young Gascon lad. At least she gave him a night to remember first. Fair's fair.

"Going out, my lady?" an old woman with a basket of violets smiled crookedly at her, hopeful of a sale. Milady hesitated, looked into the ancient eyes and felt a pang of solidarity with another person out so late. She dropped a couple of sous into the gnarled hand and quickly took a bunch of violets, not wanting to be touched by the dry wrinkled skin.  
"Bless you, kind lady. Going to find out your fate?"  
"I shall lay these on a loved one's grave." Milady indicated the bunch of sweet-smelling flowers.  
"They say that if you go into the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents at midnight, you will see either your guardian angel to guide you to heaven or a coach and four, black as night, and the coachman is the devil himself, to take you to hell. Maybe you'll meet your angel." And the crone winked as she walked away. Funny, thought Milady, Thomas used to wink at her in just such a way. 

The Cemetery of the Innocents was very old. There was a chapel alongside it and rows of charnel houses, put up when extra space was needed, with elegant rows of arched doorways behind which the bones of the dead increased year by year. The place gave off an unpleasant aroma in the height of summer, but at least in the cooler weather it was tolerable. 

'What am I doing?' she thought, 'No one will know if I go home and tell Ninon that I saw nothing, because that is all a lot of nonsense. Just a few more minutes and I'm off.' She touched the hidden knife under her cloak; she was more afraid of the thieves which haunted this place at night than any phantom. She made her way to the large, imposing fountain, climbed the few steps to the elaborate canopy and looked about her. A full moon lit up the crowded monuments to death - she'd have no fear of tripping over a fallen stone. There was a warm sensation at her feet and she looked down to see a stout little black cat rubbing itself sinuously against her. It looked up with eyes the colour of amber. Milady bent to stroke it for a moment. It was definitely real. She wasn't superstitious, a black cat meant nothing - unless a bat flew in front of the moon, but there were no bats tonight and no owl hooted.

The graves were silent; nothing moved at all, except for the cat.

She scanned the grave stones, some new and others covered with lichen and unreadable, weathered away to almost nothing. She could make out several recent burials with carved angels on them. So that must be the reason for the silly myth! She had seen her guardian angel among the memorials and it was now time to be off. 

As she moved to leave, the little cat took fright and ran off into the sea of gravestones. It made Milady jump; she'd be glad to get back to her warm room. The air was now noticeably cooler and a sudden breeze picked up bringing a pale miasma which blotted out the moonlight. Milady shivered with the cold. Strange sounds emerged from the haze, like a drumming; faint at first but coming closer. Out of the gently swirling fog were formed two horses' heads, black and plumed as for a funeral. As the horses became more visible, she saw two others behind them - a coach and four, but, unlike the cat, insubstantial, ghostly. Unheeding of the stones jutting from the earth, they moved in a slow unhindered trot.

Milady had often wondered if she had a heart, she was as fearless for her own safety as she was unmoved by the suffering of others, but now seeing this ghastly phantom she felt a thread of fear weaving through her. The carriage was black as the horses, with no coat of arms on the door. There were no reins to guide the horses because there was no coachmen to hold them. The vision stopped for a moment and the black curtain at the carriage window was slowly drawn back by a white skeletal hand.

She recognised her own jewelled hair pin in her own hair atop a skull that seemed to stare directly at her. In the rictus grimace of death were rows of immaculate teeth with a little gap in the centre just like her own. Then everything was gone. Horses, carriage, occupant, all just disappeared and again there was the moon, round as a dinner plate, lighting the sea of stone in a windless night.

* * * * *

"You will not be surprised to learn that there was nothing in that cemetery but corpses, stones and a few angel statues, which no doubt has fed the superstition," Milady explained the following day. 

In Ninon's library, its maps and globe a monument to reason, how could she even believe what she saw? She must have got tired and dreamed it all. Then from the corner of her eye, she noticed a small black form appear from behind a marble column. It looked at her and she saw its amber eyes. Then it vanished and for less than a second Milady saw the palest outline of a familiar portly figure which, too, evaporated. 

She pondered it later, in her solitary room. Yet it had been a real cat, she was sure of it. Just a silly coincidence that the phantom which rose from it resembled Raul Mendoza, the man she had killed in Meung. She recalled the hag with the violets who had strangely put her in mind of Thomas de Sillègue d'Athos, the man she had got rid of to gain the title for her husband. Perhaps the horses were the spirits of other victims such as the blacksmith she'd had to silence. The carriage needed no driver because she herself was it. The devil. 

She was already in hell.

She shivered, and this time it was not from the cold.


End file.
